Video Games: Ruining Lives Since 1972

Compulsive online gaming is becoming a significant reason behind the recent upswing in college student dropouts, according to Federal Communications Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate.

Tate made the comments, citing World of Warcraft as an example, during a speech on December 5th: “You might find it alarming,” she said, “that one of the top reasons for college drop-outs in the U.S. is online gaming addiction, such as World of Warcraft, which is played by 11 million individuals worldwide.”  

Today’s parents must be so proud. For generations, the greatest threat to a student’s future was their propensity for excess drinking and bong respiration. These days, the greatest threat is pretending to be a level 60 dwarf priest in a computer game.

Academic counselors at the University of Minnesota Duluth brought the problem to the attention of UMD Chancellor Kathryn A. Martin in recent months, when they discovered that students with academic difficulties were spending massive amounts of time playing computer games like WoW, Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot and Star Wars Galaxies. 

Martin addressed the issue more directly with UMD freshmen and resident advisers this year. “These are very, very bright kids, and if you can’t get them back on track, you’ve lost a lot of potential,” Martin said.

Dangers of problematic gaming include changes in sleep cycles that can affect concentration, memory and physical health (because college is otherwise known for developing good sleeping habits), and when the gaming world becomes more satisfying than the real world.

There’s really no debate on whether or not World of Warcraft or other MMOs (Massive Multiplayer Online) are life-suckers. WoW is entirely about gaining experience and leveling up, and there’s only one way to do such things efficiently: spend lots – and lots and lots and lots – of time playing. Much more time than the average kid would spend on, say, studying for an exam or researching a project they don’t care about. The concept that MMOs are a leading cause of distraction and, therefore, pose a significant threat to academic progress isn’t exactly groundbreaking.

According to the experts, you’ve likely moved from a hobby gamer to a full-fledged obsessed stickfiddler if you exhibit any of the following behaviors:  

• You lose track of time from playing so much.
• Others (girlfriend, roommates, parents, total strangers) comment on how much time you spend playing.
• Work, relationships and/or school are neglected.

In other words, if you own a gaming system, it’s time to check yourself in.

Dorm-bound college kids without jobs or, for the first time in their pasty lives, the oversight of check-signing parents, are the most susceptible to this kind of self-destructive indulgence. Especially now that most college dorms have high-speed internet connections. 

Nathan Kleinke, a St. Scholastica student and former GameStop store employee in Duluth, said college-age players can be more susceptible to overuse because they have more freedom.

“Kids that don’t have jobs or have much responsibility can end up taking entire semesters off to sleep, eat and play,” he said. According to Kleinke, when a sequel or new version of a game comes out, players will sometimes take a week off school or work to play the new game. 

So basically, gaming can now officially be placed in the “dangerous distractions” column alongside such age-old college traditions as excessive drinking, smoking copious amounts of weed, and having lots and lots of sex. Jack Thompson would be proud.

An entire generation of gamers is a new phenomenon, one that many “experts” are rushing to explain and medicate. Keith Bakker, the founder of the first and only videogame addiction treatment clinic in Europe, says the vast majority of patients at his clinic suffer from social difficulties, rather than any sort of actual psychological disorder. The Smith & Jones Centre in Amsterdam has reportedly treated hundreds of young gamers since being founded in 2006. New treatments are being implemented, however, now that it’s becoming clear that most gaming “addicts” are in fact suffering from social disorders, possibly brought on by inefficient parenting and teaching, as well as unmediated interaction at school.

“These kids come in showing some kind of symptoms that are similar to other addictions and chemical dependencies,” Bakker said. “But the more we work with these kids the less I believe we can call this addiction. What many of these kids need is their parents and their school teachers- this is a social problem.”

“This gaming problem is a result of the society we live in today,” he continued. “Eighty per cent of the young people we see have been bullied at school and feel isolated. Many of the symptoms they have can be solved by going back to good old fashioned communication.” 

So basically, we’re finally seeing the end result of a generation of children raised by entertainment, while their parents indulge in a consumer culture that invites them to act like children. We’ve raised a nation of pussies who have no concept of how to function in the real, living society. Is it really any surprise that nobody wants to go outside anymore?

Our generation is the very last to remember what it’s like to grow up without the internet. To entertain ourselves. The Facebook/Myspace culture is, by nature, still an abstract and untrustworthy piece of digital cellophane for many of us. The connection of real friendship, warmth without endlessly hyperbolic expression, non-digitized communication is fast becoming a thing of the past.

For millions of kids today, friendship is about quantity; quality is an outbound trend. Our vile culture of viral consumption has worked its way into the sacred human connection. Disassociation from the tangible means an inevitable atrophy of compassion, and with it, a loss of genuine humanity in socialization. A personally-tailored world of distractions and fantasy realities are just a mouse click, key command or power button away. The old definition of friendship is becoming obsolete. 

The advancement of technology is not to blame, but rather the vicious human tendency to turn in on itself, to compete and loathe and create hostile, cold distance. Running from vulnerability, taking pills to get along, creating our own realities- ones in which our only weaknesses are bandwidth, hard drive space and a lack of imagination.

When everything is viral, when regional diction and demographic variety have entirely given way to broadstroke, homogenized trend standards, where do we go to escape? Where do we turn to feel like less of a cog in the blanding consumerism machine? Even for those that can afford it in this recession/depression/economic “hiccup” (ha), a vacation is never quite the getaway we’d like- our Blackberrys, iPhones and notebooks go everywhere we do. It aint livin’ if it’s not Twittered and Flickr’d. We can’t divorce ourselves from the technologies that keep us tuned into the Great Frequency. The world is always a wireless connection away.

So what do we do? We turn to our game systems. The sweet, comfortable convenience and gratification of (delightfully violent) supremacy. Something we can plug into and out of at a moment’s notice, if absolutely need be. In a life of inescapable micromanagement, these mini-vacations into a fantasy worlds are the best way of dealing with the cold, hard fact that our entire lives have become popularity contests, and our trinkets and accessories are the only interesting things about us.